Cisco Secure Network Server 3800 Series Appliances

Introduction to the Cisco Secure Network Server 3800 series appliance

The Cisco Secure Network Server (Cisco SNS) 3800 series appliances are based on the Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS) C225 M8 Rack Server and are configured specifically to support Cisco Identity Services Engine (Cisco ISE). Cisco SNS 3800 series appliances are designed to deliver high performance and efficiency for a wide range of workloads.

The Cisco SNS 3800 series appliances are available in these models:

  • Cisco SNS 3815 (SNS-3815-K9)

  • Cisco SNS 3855 (SNS-3855-K9)

  • Cisco SNS 3895 (SNS-3895-K9)

The Cisco SNS 3815 appliance is ideal for small deployments. Cisco SNS 3855 and Cisco SNS 3895 appliances have several redundant components such as hard disks and power supplies and are suitable for larger deployments that require highly reliable system configurations. Cisco SNS 3895 is recommended for PAN and MnT personas.


Note

The Cisco SNS 3855 appliance can be configured with one hard disk or four hard disks. We recommend that you enable only the PSN or pxGrid persona if your Cisco SNS 3855 appliance is configured with only one hard disk.

Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance hardware specifications

This table describes the hardware specifications for Cisco SNS 3800 series appliances.

Table 1. Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance hardware specifications

Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance

RAM

CPU cores

Number of hard disks

Total hard disk capacity

RAID

Cisco SNS-3815-K9

64 GB

16 cores, 32 threads

NVME-1

960 GB

NA

64 GB

16 cores, 32 threads

SED-1

960 GB

RAID-0

64 GB

16 cores, 32 threads

SED-FIPS-1

1.6 TB

RAID-0

Cisco SNS-3855-K9

128 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

NVME-1

960 GB

NA

128 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

NVME-4

1.9 TB

RAID-10

128 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

SED-1

960 GB

RAID-0

128 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

SED-4

1.9 TB

 RAID-10

128 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

SED-FIPS-1

1.6 TB

RAID-0

128 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

SED-FIPS-4

3.2 TB

RAID-10

Cisco SNS-3895-K9

256 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

NVME-8

3.8 TB

RAID-10

256 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

SED-8

3.8 TB

RAID-10

256 GB

24 cores, 48 threads

SED-FIPS-8

6.4 TB

RAID-10

External features

This section describes the external features of a Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance.

Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance front panel features

This figure shows the front panel features of a Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance.

Figure 1. Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance front panel

1

Supports Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs).

Drive bays 1 – 4 optimized for SSDs.

Drive bays 5 – 10 optimized for SAS/SATA HDDs. Not recommended for SSDs.

2

Unit identification button or LED

3

Power button or power status LED

4

KVM connector (used with KVM cable that provides one DB-15 VGA, one DB-9 serial, and two USB 2.0 connectors)

5

System LED cluster includes:

  • Fan status LED

  • System status LED

  • Power supply status LED

  • Network link activity LED

  • Temperature status LED

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Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance rear panel features

This figure shows the rear panel features of a Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance.

Figure 2. Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance rear panel

1

  • Riser 1:

    • Riser 1A (PCIe Gen4): Half-height, 3/4 length, x16, Network Controller Sideband Interface (NCSI), single wide Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).

    • Riser 1B (PCIe Gen5): Half-height, 3/4 length, x16, NCSI, single wide GPU.

  • Riser 2:

    • Riser 2A (PCIe Gen4): Half-height, 3/4 length, x16, single wide GPU.

    • Riser 2B (PCIe Gen5): Half-height, 3/4 length, x16, single wide GPU.

  • Riser 3:

    • Riser 3A (PCIe Gen4): Half-height, 3/4 length, x16, NCSI, single wide GPU.

2

Power supply units

3

Modular LAN-on-motherboard (mLOM) card bay (x16 PCIe lane)

4

System identification button or LED

5

USB 3.0 ports (two)

6

Dedicated 1 GB Ethernet management port

7

COM port (RJ-45 connector)

8

VGA video port (DB-15 connector)

 —

Status LEDs and buttons

This section contains information for interpreting LED states.

Front panel LEDs

This figure shows the front panel LEDs of a Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance.

Figure 3. Front panel LEDs
Table 2. Front panel LEDs

LED name

States

1

Power button or LED ()

  • Off: There is no AC power to the server.

  • Amber: The server is in standby power mode. Power is supplied only to the Cisco Integrated Management Controller (Cisco IMC) and some motherboard functions.

  • Green: The server is in main power mode. Power is supplied to all server components.

2

Unit identification ()

  • Off: The unit identification function is not in use.

  • Blue, blinking: The unit identification function is activated.

3

System health ()

  • Green: The server is running in normal operating condition.

  • Green, blinking: The server is performing system initialization and a memory check.

  • Amber, steady: The server is in a degraded operational state (minor fault). For example:

    • Power supply redundancy is lost

    • CPUs are mismatched

    • At least one CPU is faulty

    • At least one DIMM is faulty

    • At least one drive in a RAID configuration failed

  • Amber, 2 blinks: There is a major fault with the system board.

  • Amber, 3 blinks: There is a major fault with the memory DIMMs.

  • Amber, 4 blinks: There is a major fault with the CPUs.

4

Power supply status ()

  • Green: All power supplies are operating normally.

  • Amber, steady: One or more power supplies are in a degraded operational state.

  • Amber, blinking: One or more power supplies are in a critical fault state.

5

Fan status ()

  • Green: All fan modules are operating properly.

  • Amber, blinking: One or more fan modules breached the nonrecoverable threshold.

6

Network link activity ()

  • Off: The Ethernet LOM port link is idle.

  • Green: One or more Ethernet LOM ports are link-active, but there is no activity.

  • Green, blinking: One or more Ethernet LOM ports are link-active, with activity.

7

Temperature status ()

  • Green: The server is operating at normal temperature.

  • Amber, steady: One or more temperature sensors breached the critical threshold.

  • Amber, blinking: One or more temperature sensors breached the non-recoverable threshold.

Internal diagnostic LEDs

This figure shows the internal diagnostic LEDs of a Cisco SNS 3800 series appliance.

Figure 4. Internal diagnostic LED locations

1

Fan module fault LEDs (one behind each fan connector on the motherboard)

  • Amber: Fan has a fault or is not fully seated.

  • Green: Fan is OK.

2

DIMM fault LEDs (one behind each DIMM socket on the motherboard)

These LEDs operate only when the server is in standby power mode.

  • Amber: DIMM has a fault.

  • Off: DIMM is OK.

3

CPU fault LEDs

These LEDs operate only when the server is in standby power mode.

  • Amber: CPU has a fault.

  • Off: CPU is OK.

-

—

Serviceable component locations

This figure shows the locations of the field-replaceable components and service-related items.

Figure 5. Serviceable component locations

1

Front-loading drive bays 1–10 support SAS, SATA, and NVMe drives

2

Cisco M8 24G SAS RAID card or Cisco M8 24G SAS Host Bus Adapter (HBA) controller

3

Cooling fan modules

4

SuperCap module provides RAID write-cache backup

5

DIMM sockets on motherboard

6

Motherboard CPU socket

7

M.2 module connector

Supports a boot-optimized RAID controller with connectors for up to two SATA M.2 SSDs.

8

Power supply units

9

PCIe riser slot 3

10

PCIe riser slot 2

11

PCIe riser slot 1

12

Modular LOM (mLOM) card bay on chassis floor (x16 PCIe lane)

Summary of server features

This table lists a summary of server features.

Feature

Description

Chassis

One rack-unit (1RU) chassis.

Multi-bit error protection

Multi-bit error protection is supported.

Video

  • Cisco IMC provides video using the Matrox G200e video or graphics controller.

  • Embedded DDR memory interface supports up to 512 MB of addressable memory. 8 MB is allocated by default to video memory.

  • Integrated 2D graphics core with hardware acceleration.

  • High-speed integrated 24-bit RAMDAC.

  • Single lane PCI-Express host interface running at Gen 1 speed.

Baseboard management

BMC, running Cisco IMC firmware.

Depending on your Cisco IMC settings, Cisco IMC can be accessed through the 1-Gb dedicated management port or a Cisco virtual interface card.

Network and management I/O

Rear panel:

  • One 1-Gb Ethernet dedicated management port (RJ-45 connector)

  • One RS-232 serial port (RJ-45 connector)

  • One VGA video connector port (DB-15 connector)

  • Two USB 3.0 ports

Front panel:

  • One KVM console connector (supplies two USB 2.0 connectors, one VGA DB15 video connector, and one serial port RJ45 connector)

Modular LOM or OCP3 3.0 slot

The dedicated modular LOM or OCP 3.0 slot on the motherboard can accommodate these cards:

  • Cisco virtual interface cards (VICs)

  • OCP 3.0 network interface card

Advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI)

The ACPI 4.0 standard is supported.

Front panel

The front panel controller provides status indications and control buttons.

Cooling

Eight hot-swappable fan modules for front-to-rear cooling.

InfiniBand

The PCIe bus slots in this server support the InfiniBand architecture.